Starfall

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Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL). Starfall is an educational alternative to other entertainment choices for children.

In May of 2009, we released the Starfall Kindergarten Reading and Language Arts Curriculum. Our method of instruction motivates children in an atmosphere of imagination and enthusiasm, provides opportunities for child-directed instruction, and supports English language learners and struggling readers learning alongside their peers. Please visit the Starfall Store for other low-cost phonics journals and books paralleling this website.

About Starfall

At age 9, young Stephen Schutz was still struggling to read. What came easily for some children required many more hours of Stephen’s work, and he was consistently toward the bottom of his class in reading. Now a PhD in physics and a successful publisher and artist, Dr. Schutz wanted to make sure children in his situation today have a resource that can help. He turned to the Internet and conceived a program that would be available online across the world to all children who are learning to read in English.

Founded in 2002, Starfall is made possible through the vision of the Polis-Schutz family. Dr. Stephen Schutz and poet Susan Polis Schutz founded Blue Mountain Arts publishing company in 1970 and together with their son, Jared Schutz, created the popular electronic greeting card company, bluemountain.com. The Polis-Schutz family shares a passion for education. Susan Polis Schutz was a teacher in New Jersey and New York City in the 1960s, while Jared Schutz Polis served on the Colorado State Board of Education.

Starfall is recognized and highly rated by experts. The Reading Teacher named Starfall.com one of “Five Internet sites too good to miss” (May 2006). In 2005 and again in 2008, Homeschool.com recognized Starfall as one of their top five educational websites. Starfall was the first Internet site to be recognized by Children’s Software & New Media Review as the highest rated product in their Early Elementary category, Spring 2004.

Starfall is produced by a dedicated and talented team led by Brandi Chase. The Starfall team of educators, artists, designers, animators, musicians, and engineers live all over the world!

Pricing

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Starfall

Free

A free public service to teach children to read with phonics.

Reviews

I have experinced students in both the first and second grade engaged in this program that provided a variety of resources to strengthen the students phonics and phonemic awareness. The students were very interested and eager to participate in the activities.

As an ESL teacher, I find Starfall as one of the most useful phonics tool. It offers to teach the correct pronunciation for various alphabets and words. The colorful and easy-to-use programs make learning more fun. I used it with my own kids when they were learning letter recognition, and now I use it with students from countries like South Korea and Japan, who love the simple way Starfall helps them pronounce words. The tool is so simple that they practice on it regularly, even outside my online classroom. I would definitely recommend it to all parents and ESL teachers.

When I taught Kindergarten, I would often pull up Starfall for children to use in the computer center. It helped them with letter recognition and phonics to improve their reading skills. I also used it when I taught other elementary grade levels to help students who were struggling with reading. Its colorful layout and engaging activities encouraged students to keep working rather than giving up or becoming frustrated. I currently use Starfall to help my own daughter as she is starting to learn about letters and their sounds.

I love Starfall! I used this site back when I was in primary school. The site was easy to use and my students loved it. The colors are playful and fun, as are the illustrations and videos. Information was well-organized and easy to find.

I would highly recommend this resource to any ESL teacher and have recommended this to my students' parents many times.

Starfall was the very first edtech tool I used with my own children. Their letter recognition interactive videos, and incipient reading games entertained both my son and my daughter. It is like "Old School Sesame Street," simple, slow moving, and full of bell-bottom jeans.